Smart Cities by definition…. well, while there is no specific definition of what a smart city is, there is broad agreement that smart cities use technology to make life easier for their citizens.
Transportation, transportation networks and transport efficiency are a few of the most important areas of any city, because regardless of whether users want to engage with smart technology, they are required to use the roads to get to and from their destination. In efficient jurisdictions, groceries, food and all other necessities can easily be delivered to consumers’ homes. However, before cities reach that development milestone – citizens will often need to drive to their locations and on these journeys, they encounter traffic, drop into potholes and in the Caribbean “reflect” on how “ineffective” other drivers may be.
Rethinking our roads
Smart transportation in the Caribbean and developing country context starts with rethinking how we use our road networks. In many Caribbean islands we have the challenge that all the roads “going to town” in the morning and “going home” (i.e. in rush hours) in the evening are all blocked. Often, our limited land areas with houses, schools and stores built close to the road mean that our roads cannot be expanded to “give more usable road space”.
Even more, what has been found to improve traffic has not been to widen the roads, but actually to:
– Make public transportation more effective, reliable and comfortable.
– Have citizens use public transportation to reduce the number of cars on the road.
As we do this, it will have a major impact on vehicles, maintenance costs in improving the structure and utilisation of the road network. For example, a simple solution for the Caribbean and many countries with limited road networks could be to:
1. Use the unused road capacity in rush hour times to allow buses only in those lanes. – this would allow buses to travel faster, and reach their locations on a regular schedule thereby allowing public vehicle passengers to have more certainty around their travel times and also to use their time effectively while traveling (e.g. reading or responding to email while in an airconditioned bus vs driving and stuck in traffic)
2. Installing Fleet Management (Tracking) Devices and providing a customer facing app to allow customers to get information on bus schedules and real-time bus information so that they can plan their travel more effectively.
3. Using the tracking information to improve vehicle deployment and into areas where customers are requesting service.
Items 2 and 3 above tie into the elements of creating a smart city and as many of us are aware – we must first understand and collect data on how a system is working before we able to put systems or processes in place to improve it.
There are numerous options for improving transport in our region and many of the options are not cost intensive, but rather require a rethinking of our existing resources.
International Examples:
A recent trip to Shenzhen (China) was proof of how smart transportation and artificial intelligence (AI) work in the real world. In a city with the highest density of cars per kilometer, there was less waiting, less traffic congestion and more time spent at your destination rather than on the road. In other cities without AI enabled traffic management, we could feel the grinding of the slow transportation experience as we waited for hours in traffic to go a few kilometers.
Smart transportation also includes smart technologies around road usage, and using the data to be able to understand your road network. As the industry has grown, the focus has not been solely on vehicle tracking but rather on using those vehicles to give useful data (in aggregate) to provide information on congestion, roads that need repair, accident hot spots etc.
Summary
Using data to improve our transportation networks is the next step for any city or country that is serious about improving the lives of their citizens. The focus of ensuring that there is safe, clean, timely and reliable transportation is one major check mark towards being serious in developing your economy and positively transforming the lives of your citizens. Companies that place themselves at the forefront of development and thought in this area are sure to be pivotal in working with regulators to improve the lives of their citizens in their islands and countries.
Other Resources:
- Wiki – Intelligent Transportation
- Mckinsey – What make transportation Smart
- Al Jazeera English – China Transport’s Revolution – Shenzhen China
- Smart Transportation – Huawei
- YouTube – Shenzhen (China) Transportation
- YouTube – Smart Transportation
- Barbados today – Electric Buses for Barbados
- Dynamic road lane management study: A Smart City application (Image above)
HitzDiaries – Smart Transportation System Market Is Booming Worldwide (Image above)
